Grouping is the reason I play mmorpg's and not single player games.

Originally posted by Nikopol

I've found I play for the community first, not game mechanics... so it depends entirely on the people.

I *love* grouping. And I won't just group up for achievement, I'll group for the enjoyment of it all... So I vastly prefer inadequate but courteous players to skilled jerks who suck the enjoyment out of everyone but the strictly reward-minded.

Similarly, I'm OK with wiping on a boss for hours on end with a fun guild while an efficient run with a much-too-uptight guild bores me to tears after a while.

 

I can't agree with this enough. I would rather lose with winners, than win with losers.

I was thinking of starting a thread but this seems a good place.

Normally I solo or play with a friend.   Last night I was playing Fallen Earth and thought, why don't I ask if someone needs any help and see what happens.

So I put out a message asking if anyone could use some help and sure enough a guy ( I think)  says yea , I could use some better equipment.  So we compare equipment and I say, yea I think I can make you some better stuff than that.  I pointed out that a belt, some boots and a jacket would be a big improvement.

So off I go to the next town and I start crafting him the belt and boots.  I figure what the hell I will use my own mats for that.   As I am crafting he comes on and asks "Do you have any money, I am really low and would like to buy this knife"  I ask him how much and it is an amount that he could easily have made himself in about 30 minutes of scavenging.  So I say sorry, I am not a bank, and explain this to him.

Finally I have his boots and belt ready and tell him he can come and pick them up. 

His first words to me.... " No jacket? :( "

So I politely say, "you would have to contribute a little to that if you want it"

And as I say "Cya mate!" he goes off into the night without even a thank you.

And I think to myself, "That was so rewarding I can't wait to do it again!!" 

Originally posted by Boneserino

I was thinking of starting a thread but this seems a good place.

Normally I solo or play with a friend.   Last night I was playing Fallen Earth and thought, why don't I ask if someone needs any help and see what happens.

So I put out a message asking if anyone could use some help and sure enough a guy ( I think)  says yea , I could use some better equipment.  So we compare equipment and I say, yea I think I can make you some better stuff than that.  I pointed out that a belt, some boots and a jacket would be a big improvement.

So off I go to the next town and I start crafting him the belt and boots.  I figure what the hell I will use my own mats for that.   As I am crafting he comes on and asks "Do you have any money, I am really low and would like to buy this knife"  I ask him how much and it is an amount that he could easily have made himself in about 30 minutes of scavenging.  So I say sorry, I am not a bank, and explain this to him.

Finally I have his boots and belt ready and tell him he can come and pick them up. 

His first words to me.... " No jacket? :( "

So I politely say, "you would have to contribute a little to that if you want it"

And as I say "Cya mate!" he goes off into the night without even a thank you.

And I think to myself, "That was so rewarding I can't wait to do it again!!" 

I've had similar experiences.

"If you give a mouse a cookie he's gonna ask for a glass of milk."

Don't give away free stuff.  It never ends well.

As a die-hard soloer, I feel:

The best grouping experience you'll ever have in an MMO is better than the best soloing experience.

The worst grouping experience you'll ever have in an MMO is far, far worse than the worst soloing experience.

Originally posted by Czanrei
Call me traditional, but I enjoy grouping because its an MMO, not a single-player video game. I cannot stand the direction modern devs are going with making soloing optional and even going so far to allow players to join multiple guilds. 

In Ultima Online, waaaaay back in '97, I did a lot of soloing. I was a part of two guilds as well, one was a evil RP guild, and one was an Anti-pk guild.

This doesn't mean i never grouped, we did a lot of "raids" (not your traditional raids), and a  lot of dungeon crawling, but make no mistake, i did a lot of soloing.

It was more or less the same before that in Neverwinter Nights, and after in SW:G and DAoC.

/shrug

Wouldn't the average normal human being at least offer something in return??  What is with players that know what it takes to craft something yet just expect you to give it to them?

And not even a thank you! For something free?

I am sorry but if people are like this in a game what are they like in real life?

Originally posted by Czanrei
Call me traditional, but I enjoy grouping because its an MMO, not a single-player video game. I cannot stand the direction modern devs are going with making soloing optional and even going so far to allow players to join multiple guilds. 

Grouping was never the traditional way to engage in MMO content. Actually, some of the early MMOs did not even have a grouping option. 

There are some inherent problems with grouping that, more or less, have always existed in MMOs and very few developers have tried to overcome. They all stem from the same tired old "either/or" development of content: You have either solo content or 5- man, 10-man, 20-man, etc, content. There is very little content available in MMOs that scale-up or down to accomodate fluid groups in a satisfying way. It has been tried: WAR did it with PQs, Rift's rifts and GW2's dynamic events are all attempts to address this. The problem is that none of them have nailed it and in all cases, they have been implemented as "third options" instead of full-fledged group-content replacements.

The standard group problems of wasting a lot of game time waiting for the group to form and more wasted time waiting for the group to reform after someone leaves are still there. Add to that the competitive nature of reward drops--especially class-limited drops--which can often leave you feeling like you just wasted 3 hours of your life you'll never get back...

What's needed is scalable fluid content that can be done with 2-40, depending on who's around and having rewards proportionate to your time commitment and participation, not just a random luck of the draw where the guy who was there for 20 minutes can end-up getting the reward and those who were there for 5 hours get nothing useful.

The purpose of grouping in an MMORPG is not to be sociable, chat and meet new people--those are the fringe benefits you get on the side. The purpose has to be inherent to the game and has to be worth your time and effort. People group less these days not because they are less sociable-- they don't do it because it generally sucks and is a waste of time compared to soloing. And this is the fault of the content developers who segregate the core game content.

I really think the mmos of today are way to afraid of making group content for leveling etc. Right now they mark them as "DANGEROUS, REQUIRE GROUP, BEWARE!!!"

I think the biggest problem with getting a group today is that it require everyone to have the same quests. AO solved this beautifully with team missions, and other older MMOs just had areas where you needed groups to kill.

Anyway.. If I didn't enjoy grouping up I'd play a single player RPGs :)

It depends on the game, but for the most part, yes... IF I'm sufficiently experienced in said game, have SOME knowledge of what to expect in the scenario (nothing worse than joining a group and not fully knowing your role and what is expected of you).

Time constraints can be a problem, so I don't raid... I never have the time to spend 2, 3 or more hours rooted in front of my computer, so I miss a lot of supposedly good content and items/gear, unfortunately.

Grouping nowadays amounts to your mom (devs pathetic grouping mechanics) telling you to ask the smelly kid to go with you because she doesn't want you to go to the comic book store alone.

Grouping should be because you personally feel so excited about going to the comic book store that you want to grab a few friends and make a adventure out of it.

I love grouping, but I won't group if it kills my rate of exp. What I need then is a game that promotes grouping as a viable and superior option to leveling up alone, I like to embrace the MMO element...

In a themepark though soloing is vastly superior - traveling to end game is best done alone in 95% of the game out right now. Do something as simple as remove the idea of end game from the situation, and suddenly soling is viable, but so is grouping up, hell grouping up will get the job done faster whatever it is.

Originally posted by Enerzeal

I love grouping, but I won't group if it kills my rate of exp.

I'm actually the opposite, I WILL group even if it kills my rate of exp. or if there are no rewards.

To be grouping, with the right group, is fun in and of itself.

When with a good group of people.

As far as gear. experience and the like, since I have no problem soloing and prefer buying my gear (as long as the game allows this) then I can do that on my own time.

I enjoy grouping up with people in mmorpgs and I also like to be able to go solo when I feel I want to.

What I don't like grouping for is Raiding. I raided for years in WoW and despised it. I despised the gear grinding in raiding.

In DAOC Pre-ToA I loved grouping up with people, the dungeons weren't instanced, you just went and grabbed a spot in the dungeon and sat there killed with your group for as long as you wanted. People got to know each other, we knew each other and the community as a whole were more friendly than in todays mmo's because of this.

Today in dungeons, it's is all about the phat, l337, loot you're gonna get, or the tokens you need from it, etc. People don't get to enjoy the grouping up part.

Depends on the activity.

Instanced content? Nah. Not interested in things that have no affect on game world. I feel people are just there for loot anyways.

World events/pvp/pve? Absolutely.